Aibu to think headmistress is living in la la land?

[Maxandrubyrubyandmax]

Get out of a 30 min meeting at work 5missed calls on mobile and my secretary comes rushing over at same time land line calls. Headmistress from ds school. DS has run into post and banged his nose. Can I get there immediately. Apparently DS is fine but we have to pick him up. Explain I will be about 45 min as need to pack up and get train and walk to school. DH about an hour away. Quizzed about couldn't a grandparent pick up
DS (no the nearest is 2 hours away). Didn't we have friends? Yes but it's not 1955 so they all work? Other relatives? No they live miles away and yes they work. Set off to school. Head mistress rings DH goes through same questions. As no one has moved house in last 5min gets same answer. Get to school. DS sat chatting to school secretary happy as you like. Head mistress goes through same questions nope still no one hAs moved or given up job in last 45 min. But there must be someone says the head. Well no actually there isn't. But she wants someone who can be at school in 5 min. Start to get pissed off. No one I tell her. She then shakes her head and says I guess that's how it is these days then. Aibu to be pissed off and felt judged about the fact I have moved away from the family home, got a job and don't just drop off child and sit at home all day? If it had been urgent I would have jumped in a taxi

No the Headmistress is not in Lalaland but you are also not being unreasonable (apart from your facile and quite incorrect remark about 1955).

I do not think 45 minutes to get to a school is unreasonable.

Perhaps she was anxious about meeting health & safety targets? You know how we're meant to wrap kids in bubble wrap these days and maybe she wanted to offload your son so the school wouldn't somehow 'get in trouble' for keeping him with them.
Really weird reaction though, I definitely think some pent-up frustration about something else was behind it haha

In the "good old days", when more women were SAHMs, they didn't have these things called mobile phones. Half the time I was at school, my mum would have been round at my gran's house looking after her; or catching a bus to the supermarket, shopping and coming home. Most days there would be a 3 - 4 hour gap when the school couldn't even have reached her by phone, so she would probably have been there much later than the OP!

YANBU. I get this all the time. I'm a SAHM but I'm still 45 mins from school (our nearest) because I have to get 2 toddlers in the buggy and get the bus. I was in HDU once and the nurses kept saying I should have someone with me and I kept explaining that DH was looking after the dc's and I didn't have anyone else.

Even if you had a neighbour nominally available during the day, you have no guarantee he or she could get to the school to pick up a child. People go shopping, take trips, fall ill, their cars need repairs, have a life, etc.

Wrt suggestions that the secretary should have passed a note to you at the meeting - I disagree. Depending on the industry, you might as well offer to make the tea for everyone and clean up afterwards, because such an interruption would be that damaging to your credibility among your colleagues.

The school needs to be informed that the secretary can be told the details of whatever has befallen the DC at school and s/he should be allowed to tell the school you can't get there or can't get there for X hours or minutes if in her judgement the problem is minor.

At the opposite end of the situation, I'm a (divorced) single mum and as the kids' dad refused to ever help in an emergency every time they needed fetching when ill or injured, my work could not wrap their heads around there not being another adult for the kids. My parents are dead, my siblings all work full-time, friends the same. Work was forever whining "can't someone else do it?", even though I needed to leave early on average about once a year.

Lizzie. I feel your pain. DH works away a logo and is often 100s of miles away or occasionally in a different country so definately have to leave on time sometimes for pick ups as no one else. People always assume tgere is a fit and healthy grandparent just waiting to jump at the chance of collecting DS from school at a moments notice. DH does about 80% of pick ups though.

Maxandruby (love those bunnies!), isn't that annoying?!! My parents had me late in life so even if they'd been alive they'd have been 83 & 79 when my youngest was born so almost 90 by the time he started school, and not everyone @ that age would be up for picking up a sick kid. Even trickier when deceased!

And no, it is not my brother or sister's responsibility to leave their full-time jobs to get my kids. That's my job & if the Scrooges I worked for when the kids were younger wanted people to care for them when they're old then they need to have a younger generation now. I felt sometimes they just resented the existence of children full stop, not just mine.

Ha! That's very funny - I wonder why my phone didn't autocorrect those. But well done phone for making a tit out of me.

What do parents who can't get there quickly expect the school to do?

Most primary schools have no spare staff. There is no one to look after a sick child for hours or escort an injured child to hospital. I've been in schools where they have had to use a 1 to 1 TA to mind a sick child - hardly fair on the child in need of 1 to 1 support.

Watery. They can do the same as when I was a kid. Sit in the school office or if the child is fine as mine was they can go back to class. No parent can magically appear within seconds. Teachers managed perfectly well back then with 30 kids when no one had heard of a teaching assistant.

YANBU. It's a bit mad. She wouldn't get me in five minutes though & I'm a sahm that lives in the same village as the school. By the time I've got the toddler in the buggy & sorted my 4yo (& in winter) got hats, scarf, gloves on, it's a good 20 minutes. Our school are quite good though, ds(5) is clumsy & also has a head condition that can make bumps look worse than they are. They do call me each time he has a knock to the head/face but are usually happy to keep him if he seems fine in himself (they always give me the option of getting him).

And if they are constantly throwing up? Or bleeding? Or the secretary has work to do?

Teachers managed perfectly well years ago because there used to be floating teachers and TAs as far back as the 50s. And parents made arrangements to have their ill or injured DCs collected. Not so now.

I once got a text asking me to collect my DD immediately. Only thing is I'm not allowed my phone in work so it's switched off in the car! I've lost count of how often I've told them this and given them office numbers 🙄

They can do the same as when I was a kid

In year 1 I had a head injury and was sent home - alone - two streets away - two roads to cross - unknown if anyone was home!!

No cosy office to sit in!

Watery No, it's not fair on the child who needed 1 to 1 support. Nor is it fair that people with jobs are sometimes unreachable are further from school than would be helpful and have no immediate family or neighbour support.

But you know what? Life isn't always fair and sometimes you have to settle for the least worst option.

Stupid question coming: why don't some schools have a sick room and a nurse available any more? I appreciate they can't be expected to look after a poorly kid for hours, but an hour seems reasonable if the parent can't make it faster? When I was a kid my mum was a SAHP, but we had no car so walked or took bus to school - 45 mins away. That wasn't unusual in the 1970s, and if she was out shopping she wouldn't necessarily get the message until later than that.

Not every school had a sickroom and in many there is no place for one. Every inch occupied.

Sick rooms are a thing of the past.

Stupid question coming: why don't some schools have a sick room and a nurse available any more?

Most primary schools never had either. Smaller schools can't afford to pay for a full time nurse to be on call.

Life isn't always fair and sometimes you have to settle for the least worst option.

Good luck explaining that to the parent of the child distressed/disruptive because the 1 to 1 isn't available.

There are often threads on here complaining about the 1 to 1 being used for other duties.

I don't know what the solution is but the attitude here from many seems to be that the school is unreasonable to expect a sick or injured child to be collected ASAP.

What happens if one of your children are ill Watery? Can you get there in 10 mins?

Depending on the industry, you might as well offer to make the tea for everyone and clean up afterwards, because such an interruption would be that damaging to your credibility among your colleagues.

Only if your secretary is indiscreet enough to show everyone what the note says. If done properly, the secretary will slide in quietly with an air of "terribly sorry to interrupt but Ms Important Executive needs to know that the prime minister is on line 2".

Watery ASAP of course, but sometimes as soon as possible isn't as soon as the HT would like in an ideal world. There are constraints of physical distance, transport, and being reached in the first place. If one parent is a teacher (or a 1 to 1 TA!) and the other is a surgeon - which do you think should keep the phone on just in case? How far away from school is it acceptable for parents to work? What if the DC are at different schools?

You are joining the HT in the original post and should apply for citizenship of la la land. Or perhaps Tommy-Cooper Country where everything happens "just like that".

What happens if one of your children are ill Watery? Can you get there in 10 mins?

They are grown up now but yes they would have been collected within 10/15 minutes. I worked but had plenty of back up. DH could have been there in 20 minutes if all back ups not available.

Lucky you Watery - not everyone has back-up and not everyone can walk out of work at a moments notice.